This story about “Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities” first appeared in the Limited series/movies issue from TheWrap Emmy magazine.
That’s enough of a task to create the appearance of a mini horror feature, but imagine if your task were a total of eight, a la “Tales from the Crypt” or “Alfred Hitchcock Presents.” And each one had a different director. And none of the stories were directly related to each other. And it was all overseen by a beloved Oscar-winning filmmaker whose name alone is a brand. “Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities” production designer Tamara Deverell knew it would be a challenge to satisfy all visions, with filmmakers as diverse as Jennifer Kent (“The Babadook”), Panos Cosmatos (“Mandy”), Vincenzo Natali (“Splice”) and Ana Lily Amirpour (“A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night”) as her list to start.
“Everything went well, and then shit hit the fan when these directors came along,” Deverell said. “Because even though I’m a people person, and everyone was lovely, the process was difficult because the directors were all very thoughtful and intense and had their own ideas. So it was a bit of a dance for me as a designer between what I know Guillermo wants, who the creator is, and what each director wants. There’s a lot of, like, dancing.”
And this pas de deux (or more to the point, pas de trois) included the creation of settings to accommodate stories as varied as the early 1900s art scene, a 1960s bird watcher’s cottage, a psychedelic party floor 1970s nouveau riche, an abandoned storage lot, and even a community of rats inhabiting the bowels of a graveyard.
“We built a ton,” Deverell said, noting del Toro’s love of design and effects, something he learned when he worked with the Oscar-nominated production design team on his 2021 noir, “Nightmare Alley.” “We had four stages full of sets. Some we used and some I tried to play the chess game of being the brains of how to reuse.” He can see all of the director’s influences mixed into “Cabinet,” while attentive viewers will notice nods to movies like “Carrie” and “Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” among others.
“I would say 80% of the show was filmed on stage,” he said. “I trust Guillermo for the aesthetics of film history. He’ll say, ‘Okay, you’ve got to see this and this,’ and he always has suggestions that are really helpful.” Another bonus was that Deverell and his team were allowed to reuse a set from another del Toro horror anthology in the that she didn’t work on, “Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark,” and only delved into filming on location when it was an absolute necessity, like Episode 6, Catherine Hardwicke’s witch tale set in a forest. show like this that’s very intense, you want it to be a stage show, just logistically, because you have a crew, and it’s just brutal to go out on location, as opposed to being located in a studio,” Deverell said.
And then there was the last part of this puzzle, almost a feature in itself: the royal cabinet of the title. Each episode opens, Hitchcock-esque, with the director of “Pan’s Labyrinth” introducing each segment as he stands next to an elaborate wooden chest whose many hidden drawers and cavities open to reveal hidden treasures. He then introduces the episode and its director, represented in individual miniature sculptures.
“That was Guillermo’s idea, and I was like, ‘My God, where are you going with this and have you talked to the directors?’” Deverell said, laughing. “But they were cool about it, and we had a lot of fun designing and building them. We had our carved sculptures in the shop, and the idea was these little Japanese ivory netsuke carvings. We did three of each: one for each director, one for Netflix. And I think Guillermo got a set. They were really beautiful and so much fun to make.”
Read more of the limited series/film edition here.
